me; and he who comes to me I will in nowise cast out.” Oh my beloved Christian, pause at this promise a moment, for it is a sweet well of precious water to slake your thirst and refresh your weariness. It is “ordered in all things.” What do you want more than this? Do you need constraining grace? It is “ordered in all things.” Do you require more of the spirit of prayer? It is “ordered in all things.” Do you desire more faith? It is “ordered in all things.” Are you afraid lest you should not hold out to the end? It is “ordered in all things.” There is converting grace in it, pardoning grace in it; justifying grace, sanctifying grace, and persevering grace; for it is “ordered in all things, and sure.” Nothing is left out; so that whenever we come, we find all things there stored up in heavenly order. Galen, the celebrated physician, says of the human body, that its bones are so well put together, all the parts being so beautifully ordered, that we could not change one portion of it without spoiling its harmony and beauty; and if we should attempt to draw a model man, we could not, with all our ingenuity, fashion a being more wondrous in workmanship than man as he is. It is so with regard to the covenant. If we might alter it, we could not change it for the better; all its portions are beautifully agreed. I always feel when I am preaching the gospel covenant that I am secure. If I preach any other gospel, I am vulnerable, I am open to attack; but standing upon the firm ground of God’s covenant, I feel I am in a tower of strength, and as long as I hold all the truths, I am not afraid that even the demons of hell can storm my castle. So secure is the man who believes the everlasting gospel; no logic can stand against it. Only let our preachers give the everlasting gospel to the people, and they will drink it as the ox drinks water. You will find they love God’s truth. But as long as God’s gospel is smothered, and the candle is put under a bushel, we cannot expect men’s souls will be brought to love it. I pray God that the candle may burn the bushel up, and that the light may be revealed.
14. But now, to wind up our description of this covenant, it is sure. If I were a rich man, there would be only one thing I should want to make my riches all I desire, and that would be, to have them sure, for riches make for themselves wings, and fly away. Health is a great blessing, and we want only to write one word on it to make it the greatest blessing, that is the adjective “sure.” We have relatives, and we love them; ah! if we could only write “sure” on them, what a blessed thing it would be. We cannot call anything “sure” on earth; the only place where we can write that word is on the covenant, which is “ordered in all things and sure.” Now there is some poor brother who has come here this morning who has lost his covenant, so he thinks. Ah! brother, you once had peaceful hours and sweet enjoyment in the presence of God, but now you are in gloom and doubt; you have lost your roll. Well, let me tell you, though you have lost your roll, the covenant is not lost, for all that. You never had the covenant in your hands yet; you only had a copy of it. You thought you read your title clear, but you never read the title deeds themselves; you only held a copy of the lease and you have lost it. The covenant itself, where is it? It is under the throne of God; it is in the archives of heaven, in the ark of the covenant; it is in Jesus’ breast, it is on his hands, on his heart — it is there. Oh! if God were to put my salvation in my hands, I would be lost in ten minutes; but my salvation is not there — it is in Christ’s hands. You have read of the celebrated dream of John Newton, which I will tell you to the best of my recollection. He thought he was out at sea, on board a vessel, when some bright angel flew down and presented him with a ring, saying, “As long as you wear this ring you shall be happy, and your soul shall be safe.” He put the ring on his finger, and he felt happy to have it in his own possession. Then there came a spirit from the vasty deep, and said to him; “That ring is nothing but folly”; and by cajolery and flattery the spirit at last persuaded him to slip the ring from off his finger, and he dropped it in the sea. Then there came fierce things from the deep; the mountains bellowed, and hurled upward their volcanic lava: all the earth was on fire, and his soul in the greatest trouble. By and by a spirit came, and diving below, retrieved the ring, and showing it to him, said, “Now you are safe, for I have saved the ring.” Now might John Newton have said, “Let me put it on my finger again.” “No, no; you cannot take care of it yourself”; and up the angel flew, carrying the ring away with him, so that then he felt himself secure, since no cajolery of hell could get it from him again, for it was up in heaven. My life is “hidden with Christ in God.” If I had my spiritual life in my own possession, I should be a suicide very soon; but it is not with me; and as I cannot save myself, as a Christian I cannot destroy myself, for my life is wrapped up in the covenant: it is with Christ in heaven. Oh, glorious and precious covenant!
15. III. Now to close our meditation. The Psalmist had a satisfaction in his heart.; “This is,” he said, “all my salvation, and all my desire.” I should not like the task of riding until I found a satisfied worldly man. I suspect there is not a horse that would not be worn off its legs before I found him; I think I should myself grow grey with age before I had discovered the happy individual, except I went to one place — that is, the heart of a man who has a covenant made with him, “ordered in all things, and sure.” Go to the palace, but there is not satisfaction there; go to the cottage, though the poet talks about sweet retirement and blest contentment, there is not satisfaction there. The only solid satisfaction — satisfying the mouth with good things — is to be found in the true believer, who is satisfied from himself, satisfied with the covenant. Behold David: he says, “As for my salvation, I am secure; as for my desire, I am gratified: for this is all my salvation, and all my desire.” He is satisfied with his salvation. Bring up the moralist. He has been toiling and working in order to earn salvation. Are you confident that if you died you would enter into heaven? “Well, I have been as good as other people, and, I dare say, I shall be more religious before I die”; but he cannot answer our question. Bring up the religious man — I mean the merely outwardly religious man. Are you sure that if you were to die you would go to heaven? “Well, I regularly attend church or chapel, I cannot say that I make any pretensions to be able to say, ‘He has made with me an everlasting covenant.’ ” Very well, you must go. So I might introduce a score of men, and there is not one of them who can say, “This is all my salvation.” They always want a little supplement, and most of you intend making that supplement a little while before you die. An old Jewish Rabbi says, that every man ought to repent at least one day before his last day; and as we do not know when our last day shall be, we ought to repent today. How many wish they knew when they were going to die, for then they fancy they would be sure to repent, and be converted a little while before. Why, if you had it revealed to you, that you would die at twenty minutes past twelve next Sunday, you would go on in sin up until twelve o’clock, and then you would say, “There are twenty minutes more — time enough yet”; and so until the twenty minutes past had come, when your soul would sink into eternal flames. Such is procrastination. It is the thief of time; it steals away our life; and if we knew the hour of our dissolution, we would be no more prepared for it than we are now. You cannot say, can you, that you have all your salvation? But a Christian can. He can walk through the cholera and the pestilence, and feel that if the arrow should strike him, death would be to him the entrance of life; he can lie down and grieve only little at the approach of dissolution, for he has all his salvation; his jewels are in his breast, gems which shall shine in heaven.
16. Then, the Psalmist says, he has all his desire. There is nothing that can fill the heart of man except the Trinity. God has made man’s heart a triangle. Men have been for centuries trying to make the globe fill the triangle, but they cannot do it; it is the Trinity alone that can fill a triangle, as old Francis Quarles {b} well says. There is no way of getting satisfaction except by gaining Christ, getting heaven, winning glory, getting the covenant, for the word covenant comprises all the other things. “All my desire,” — says the Psalmist.
I nothing want on earth, above,
Happy in my Saviour’s love.
I do not have a desire; I have nothing to do except to live and be happy all my life in the company of Christ, and then to ascend to heaven, to be in his immediate presence, where
Millions of years these wondering eyes
Shall o’er my Saviour’s beauties rove,
And endless ages